someone brought me the holy grail, okay? is that guy here? is the guy -- i have to ask first. he's not here? then let's talk about him, okay? [laughter] here's what happens. i'm not joking you, i promise you this is true. i was standing over there, and he comes up to early, and he's like, brad, and i'm like, yeah, and he says do you want to see the holy grail? and he has the crazy eyes, and i'm like you brought the holy grail all the way to barnes & noble, how do i not say yes? in that aisle over there he takes out the holy grail, i mean, the holy grail. goes into his knapsack, pulls out the holy grail, and he says to me, do you read hebrew? and i'm like, i do. and he says, then you'll understand what this says. i take the holy grail, and i look at it real close, and i'm eyeing this old, ancient pot that might have been born at pottery barn -- i can't even speak tonight -- i'm looking at thing, and he says you see now,

right? and i'm looking real close, and there's not a single hebrew letter on this entire thing. there's not any letters. like if you took the head of a pin and just went dot, dot, dot, that's all that's on there. and he say, you understand now, don't you? i say, i understand completely. and i'm walking backwards, security, right here. considering last time i'm here i got the holy grail, i am a little disappointed that no one brought me the fountain of youth. oh, you have it? sometimes the good news is you get an amazing letter from someone, and a longtime reader of mine said, brad, i work at a museum in washington, d.c. that almost nobody knows about, and you have so see what our collection has here. and i'm like, listen, i'm really busy with the holy grail, so tell me what you've got. and he said to me we've got pieces of abraham lincoln's skull, the skeleton of john wilkes booth and we've got the

bullet that killed lincoln. they don't just have the artifacts, but they have pieces of some of the other ones as well. and when i'm there, you know, he opens up a drawer, and in the drawer are a bunch of bones. all these bones. almost like you took a skeleton from your biology class and dumped them in a drawer, and i see a femur and other bones i can't remember the name because i only know femur. when i did that joke in florida, my uncle, who's a doctor, was like, there's an ulna. i'm like, freaking relatives. [laughter] i opened the drawer, and he goes meet president garfield. then he opens up another drawer and takes out this spongy jar. any man that will give you a brain, right? invite him to your party. he's awesome, right? he gives out brains. and then his assistant opens up

another drawer and takes out a leather kind of like a swatch of leather. when you go pie your sofa -- buy your sofa, they give you a little swatch, and i see there's writing on the letter, and i say what's the writing on this? she says to me, oh, that's the tattoo. i'm like, the tattoo? i realize what i'm holding is not just someone's leather, it's someone's skin. anyone who gives you a brain and skin, invite them to your party, right? they're awesome. this museum is the national museum of health and medicine, and what they have there, it used to be an army research facility. and what they used to do is if you were shot in the civil war and you died, and you got shot in the arm and you died, they would awe off your arm and send -- saw off your arm and send it to the research place and say figure out why you died. they couldn't figure it out. so they kept sawing off body parts parts and sent it off to this museum. they realized at germ therapy

develops the reason you're dying is because of infections, blood poisoning. and when they figured that out, they now realize, they say, wait, we're going to turn this research facility into a museum. and he said to me that the smithsonian has dorothy's ruby red slippers, we got all the body parts. and that's a party, right? and they have, what happened was when lincoln was shot and they did the autopsy and they took his brain out, the bullet fell from his brain, clinked into the sink, and that's how they found it. when the assassins were killed, people love the assassins in an odd, creepy way. they were almost like saints, they wanted pieces of them. so they used to cut the lining of the coffins to get pieces of that, their hair, their clothes, anything they could to own a piece of this assassin. and that's what this museum is, that's what it holds. and when i was there, as he handed -- audiotape, i lost this thing. we're back. as he hands me this piece of skin, i see also on the corner a red diamond. and the red die london like you

see on a playing card. and we all see playing cards all the time, right? we've seen them our whole lives. this is how my brain works. is every detail when abraham lincoln was shot, almost everything is cataloged and known. they can tell you what john wilkes booth had in his pants pocket, what the contents of his wallet were, what the name of his horse were and the color. they'll tell you next to ford's theater there was a bar, and john wilkes booth before he shot abraham lincoln went into this bar and ordered a drink. they'll tell you exactly what kind of drink he orders. the only detail that is not known has to do with how john wilkes booth got the white house valet. john wilkes booth walks into ford theater, he runs into an employee of the white house. and here's the moment in history, all this guy has to do is stop john wilkes booth, and all of history changes. at that moment rather than stopping him, john wilkes booth

hands this valet a card, and to this day the only detail that is not known about the lincoln assassination is what is on this mysterious card. and some people say it's a calling card, and some people say it's a business card. i remembered that, actually, business cards back then used to be playing cards. playing cards used to be blank on one side, you used to write your name on the other side to identify yourself. at the university of pennsylvania you could use them to get into class, that was your id was a playing card that was blank on one side. so my brain goes like this: you have a playing card that i can link now to john wilkes booth, and now i have a playing card that i can potentially link to the second assassin, charles giew toe, and now i have a thread. and i can weave that thread and pull it assassin to assassin. and, obviously, this is where the fiction takes over, but i start thinking about playing cards. hearts and diamonds and clubs and spades, we all know them. but they're symbols, and they mean something. they're not just there for decoration. you look at a dollar bill, it

has a pyramid with an all-seeing eye on top, right? it's a symbol. they put it there for a reason. it doesn't mean that the free masons are there to eat your babies and kill you, right? but it does mean something. and it's the same with playing cards. and if you want to know what hearts and diamonds and clubs and spades really stand for, you'll see it in the pages -- at least one theory -- in "the fifth assassin." and that's where the book begins where i say what if a serial killer was me meticulously recreating the crimes of all the assassins? and instead of being four lone wolves, they're all working together for the same secret cause and he wants to be the fifth assassin? so the book begins. for me personally, i become obsessed with assassins. i am like the haled and maude -- harold and maude of dead assan sins. in virginia they're like, i don't get it. you can't make any jokes about jews in virginia. you can make a hanukkah joke, it

dies. it's dead. and i have been crazy obsessed with assassins. and what you see, it's interesting, when you talk to the secret service and you ask is them about people who tried to kill the president, there's almost nothing that the assassins have in common, right? they're every age range, old and young, rich and poor, every age range in between. there's no rhyme or reason to it. but if you look at the four who were successful, you start to see the overlap. and, obvious, because it's -- obviously, because it's a smaller group, you see the pattern. and interestingly, all four assassins who are successfully killed a president is me meticulously neat. they're also barely known as troublemakers until, of course, that instant where they pull the trigger. what's also interesting to me is they were all four men with a cause. and when they -- a couple years ago the government brought together a bunch of futurists, and they wanted to study what's the biggest threat that's going to happen to our national security, what's the biggest threat to america. it used to be, like, russia, the bomb, whatever you want to name

it, and what they figured out 10 and 20 years from now the greatest threat will simply be an individual or a small group who's determined to die for their cause, right? and you don't have to invoke 9/11 to see what the damage can be. but when you look at assassins, they can be divided into two categories; hunters and howlers. and howlers make a lot of noise, and they call in bomb threats and say they're going to kill us, but the good news is they rarely take action. hunters are very different. hunters plot, plan and execute. but here's what's fascinating is ha hunter -- that hunters have almost no interest in howling, and howlers have almost no interest in hunting. and if you look at the four assassins, all four of them are hunters. and that means the secret service, who i have so much respect for, they took me to their training facility out in maryland, it means that the person that they are looking for is the person who they'll never see coming, right? that's a scary thought. um, and along with asags sins -- assassins, you know, the

funniest part is, it's always the funniest part, the guy who took me into his museum, the guy who has all the body parts, i saw him in washington, d.c., he was in the front row. i'm like, here's the guy with all the dead body parts, he gave me the brain, i bring him up, i introduce him, everyone claps, i give him a big hug. and he whispers in my ear as i'm hugging him, i don't like hugging very much. [laughter] right? and i'm like that is the most awesome reaction. i want the guy who spends his day with body parts to to hate hugging. i'm going the buy him an i hate hugging shirt. so i love the fact that he's there, and we get to do that with him. the other part i became obsessed with is, of course, presidents. and the fun part of the research for me is a couple years ago, um, i got a letter from now former president clinton writing about one of the books was someone had -- because someone had sent him one of the books, and then i got one of the craziest, best fan letters from

former president george h.w. bush x. he read one of my normals, and he asked -- novels, and he asked if i would sign a copy for him. i'm like, you're the leader of the free world, you get a free book. you're the president. very nice. has me out to houston, i spend some time with the bushes, and barbara and george are like the sweetest, nicest people. they spent the first half hour that we were with them president bush tried to convince my wife that he invented the phase you the man, right? that's a good joke. and my wife's like, do you know he invented the phrase you the man? i'm like, he did not. although he might have, i don't know, he's the president. but the nice part was as i was researching this book, i got to ask president bush questions about the white house and his time there. and, listen, i write fiction. i can make up anything i want, right? but we all know that there are only a few people on this planet who know what it's like to live in the white house and know that

someone out there is trying to to kill you. and that's pretty amazing. so i got to say to him, you know, are you scared, sir, were you scared at that moment? he was, like, not confused by the question, but almost like he'd never heard it before. and he's like, no. that's not the right word. he kept saying, no, no, no. and i asked him to describe it, and he said, you know, we had a lot of tense. tense was easy, right? the white house is always tense. but scared? scared is not there. and as i thought about it, it made perfect sense to me because it's like that guy who's a construction worker and works on the top of a skyscraper. eventually for that person being that high up all day long the fear of heights disappears. it's no longer part of the job. and we talked about what the assassins have in common. also u.s. presidents have things in common too. and when you're surrounded by that secret service every day and you're getting these reports every day, eventually that has to disappears that fear that you and i would all feel eventually

becomes part of the job. and that's a good thing for me. so from obama to bush, that is a good thing. i think that fear does disappear, and i'm not sure i would do much better, but the details you see about the president in this week are base -- in this book are based on my interactions with bush and how e reacted. so when you see the president reacting here, it's obviously much better to be informed by a real person. .. fiction is its best when it has one foot in the gallery and in terms of the places, finally got to decamp david. i had never been to camp data before and i didn't even know it can't did it. the camp david of courts we have all heard of it but what is this place and what did they do their

camp david has security that is better than the white house. what is going on there that they have better security in the white house and marines in secret service. it's amazing plus the apartheid that are out there when you look here's the great thing for them. it's really their second home, their getaway place and what's interesting isim they can ski shoot and play golf and bowling go swimming and have a great time but here's the best partym. no press allowed. you can allow them if you want but no press allowed. one of the secret service guys told me when president clinton took office he said i have really bad allergies. see whereç that seeket tunnelç comes out.

i love weç get to do that.s and withat s i won't ruin chapter 97 but when you read "the fifth assassin" you will see where the secret tunnel comes out and i love the way it does that. with that said what i want to ds is i promised i would talk and take questions and is far more interested to take your questions. you can ask about decoded and ask about comics and about novels and you can ask about open heart surgery and i will make up an answer. .. >> i called it brad medicaller is's decode. best of all time. what are we having for brad meltzer's dinner. i like to have brad meltzer's pasta. you can sleep on his couch. there you go.

my favorite, probably my favorite episode with be the spirit of destiny. that you guyshil pack. i was wondering what your thoughts were since time had passed. >> the question is about the sphere of destiny. we did an episode of decode it that was about the sphere that christ died help he was on the crucifix, and the main part of the story is they say that all these different leaders throughout historied a the spear, and they used it to gain power, and and napoleon got and it aberdeen else wanted it, and at the enadolph hitler wanted it, and i don't believe it gives you magic power but when you tell my hitler wants this thing, i want to know about it. we had on that episode some theories on where it was we had man -- the reason we did that episode he contacted me years

about it. before we had the show. and told me i have a story about the spear of destiny, and he had kept the company of a u.s. president and his boss supposedly had stolen the spear of destiny that hitler had. it's supposedly in a museum in europe, and it's a fake one, this and the real one as taken by his'. in people say it was in a submarine, some people say he has it. the vat cap -- vatican says it's there below the vatican, and they say they have it. it's amazing that even some people put so much into the faith of their particular spear. everybody thinks they have the selected spear. as for where i think it is, obviously the vatican says they have it. my guy who came to us says he knows where it is. we tried to track down -- the

one thing we left out of the show, he told us where he kept it, and we did try fine it but we couldn't verify that part. we don't want to say where it is until we can prove where it is. i'm now disappoint instead of getting the hole hoely grail, none of you brought me the spear of destiny. if i knew where it was, i wouldn't be here talking to you i'd use it for my own evil powers. i don't know where it is. the vatican insists theirs is the one, and a lot of people say it's in a submarine that went down a long time ago. so, maybe another episode we could do. other questions? this is usually a hard crowd. >> thanks for being here. >> thank you. >> about decoded. where do we stand with a new

season and can you talk about any mysteries you would like to do over on the show? >> the question is do we get season three or not. only in l.a. do they want to know, did you get picked up? in virginia, they don't care. they don't know what a pick-up is. i hate virginia. so, season we don't know yet. the air the two-hour special on the end of the world in determination that the world is going to en, and i schedule my new novel the january. that marketing genius right trip. know how this one ends. at it going to be okay. my favorite part of the episode, we had this nice guy who builds a bunker in wisconsin, and he takes us into the bunk sore when the apocalypse hits he survives and he has food and here's my generator and everything that is going to keep me alive, and here, check it out, y'all,

42-inch flat screen, and she is so psyched. it's like, we're all dead and burning in flames and the apocalypse is upon us and he is like, don't worry, got the 42-inch flat screen, and i got dvds. about decoded, for sure ounce of the next projects well be the next book. the next bikes a decoded book. a countdown of the top ten conspiracies and you'll see is count them down. the book after that well be for those who read heroes, collections of heroes throughout hero i did for my on and my daughter, and we did stories like the wright brothers. everytime the wright brothers went to fly their plane they brought extra materials for multiple crashes.

which meant everytime they went out they would file, crash and rebuild and crash and rebuild. and i want my sonned and tower to hear that store and if you dream big and work hard you can do anything in this world. so now we're going to do an illustrated version of those heroes. and so we're going to do, i'm ameliaaryhart. and i'm abraham lincoln and a line of children's books for kid three to seven years ol', and those are the next children's books, and then a sequel the fifth assassin. my next mock pick -- comic book project those tiny titans that -- it's a cartoon comic book for little kids, and the back of every comic book they actually print artwork, and my daughter drew a picture of won

wonder girl, and she was like, dad, can we get this in the comic? i said don't know. and thin called them and said, the fix it on, get my daughter drawing in there. and i know all of the people think their kids are the best artist. my kid is awesome. draws wonder girl like nobody's business, and i love draws this amazing seven-year-old version of wonder girl. so they asked me, can you do a three-page story for us, pick a character, and i said i can do it if i can do it miswhere i four-year-old. so here's the story that's going to happen, is he picked a polar bear who rides a unicycle. i don't understand either. go with it. and i said to him you till me what the polar bear is going to say and i'll write around you. he says we're going to fight with light sabres. and my character says, i think we're going to have some trademark issues here, and he says, we are going to fight the

trademark issues with light sabres. and i'm like, don't think you understand what trademark issues are, and my character says dish want to get his motivation, i say why are with fighting? and he says was beer evil. i said, are you all evil. >> he saysey. >> if say you ell son ground hog's day. >> yes. >> evil on handknack caw and christmas? he says yes, no. and at the enit's just him yelling over and over again. and then chewbacca comes in and yesterday could comes in, and i'm that's a trademark issue, and it's coming. that's the next comic book. and then the fifth assassin sequel. >> hello. so, it sounds like you're really busy, and to me --

>> is this a date? >> no, we aren't. no date. i was just wonder hogue do you fine time for everything? i'm a hopeful writer myself. how too you have team to write with your family and books -- >> it's actually a very important question. time management is obviously -- you can spend your entire life doing work and you can spend your entire life living your life and there's a difference. this is actually the first novel i wrote since my parents passed away, and if i learned anything -- when you write a novel, all the things you plan to put in the book, and you know the ending and then there's the things you don't plan on that go in there, and one of the things that went in here as i finished the first draft, i looked at the book and i was, what is this book at? and i was like, oh, i got it.

beecher's is growing up. up of of course, my parents are both gone. i had no choice but make this book about growing up, and if i learned anything from the love my parents gave me, it was the value of the time withure family. so i may do all these different projects but i do try never to work on the weekend, obviously if i have a speech or something i go out but i try never to work on the weekend,ings try never to miss practices. toy always succeed in no. but those are where the priorities lie and if i don't write a book a year, if i want to write a become a year issue wouldn't see my kids or wife as much, and i like them. and i hope they like me. but there's a reason why i'm on the red eye right after i leave here, after doing a five-day tour because tomorrow is baseball practice and i plan to be there are to it. so i will sleep on a plane tonight. so i'm struggling like every other father out there but that the most important part of it for me, and i absolutely learned

that from my own parents. they were insane. my mother was insane -- my mom idea to say at the dipper table, i'd saw my own arm off for you. i'm like, mom, we're eating dinner. but that love is everything i am. her love for me is my strength and foundation, and that's where it comes from. so that's the one lesson i have. i'm sorry i can produce more product but you have to spend time with your family. two more questions? in the front right here. have to have the mic. >> so you dropped a hint about the sequel to the fifth assassin. want to talk about that? >> i reveal the ending of the fifth assassin in the sequel. but to talk about it, i always knew this book was not going to be one book long. i designed beechers aring problems to last multibooks and i had over and over done, this

the tenth justice, has a problem. but goes on. and i used to think if you did a sequel you were selling out. sequel was a bad word, and what i realize is sometimes sequels are awful. if you're just writing them because you run out of ideas but the best stories tell the longer tale, and it takes a more complex problem to make it weave over multiple book skis realized i wasn't creating hard enough problems for the, whichs that would feed more than one greg. i was thinking the problem was the problem in front of enemy the bad efficient the best bad guy you'll ever fight is against yourself. always. and what you're seeing in beecher in each of these books, is a battle he is fighting within himself, and that will always be the hardest battle we fight but the most important battle because we all make the same mistakes over and over in

our lives until we solve them. and that's our life's journey, to learn how to stop making the same mistakes. one more hand. >> i just want to say i really enjoyed your youtube video on how to write your own obituary, and i want to the new decoded season, hoped you would touch on things like fema camp. >> two points. one, about a youtube video we put up, actually my ted talk about writing your ohno bit area, and for those who don't know, couple years ago i worked to save the house where superman was created, and when a reporter for the wall street journal heard about it he said to merck brad, that's going to be in you're obituary. i was like, thank you for so clearly contemplating my death. but it struck me, what's going to be in my obituary? did i matter? was i northern what did i do? did i make the world a better

place? what's in my obituary? and i was so taken by that, i couldn't shake the question. i went back a year later to that reporter, and i said to him, i want to hire you for a job. i want you to write my obituary. and he wrote it. and i won't tell you what is it in because that's the point of the talk but put in brad melster obid area, and if you think about who will remember you, you'll know how you're going to be remembered and when you look at the legacy we all leave, it's an important question you should be asking yourselves so take time and look at that in terms of fema camps, that's one of the top suggestions we get. it's amazing to see what people suggest for decoded. jfk is number one. fema camps, they want to know all these different things over and over. it's interesting because when we do the show, it's always a mix. not just my ideas, of course, it's a true collaboration and we

have great produceres, who i see here tonight, and people from history channel who are amazing, it's a true collaboration, we always try to get a good mix of things so it's not all things from revolutionary wartime. but that one comes over and over. it's amazing how much it's on the tip0s've people's tongues. i saw one hand and i wanted to tell one last story. okay. so one final story. a couple months ago, two months ago, i got to do a uso tour, and the us0 brought me over to kuwait and two other undisclosed military locations to enter tape the troops. they told me you i would meet them and spend time with them and do book talks and i was so honored to be asked. day said you can't tell anyone where you're going, it's kuwait, and then they made t-shirts for the tour and on the t-shirts

were all the locations we were going, and i was like, this crack security in charge of our lives? so i can't tell you where we went unless i'm wearing the t-shirt, but honored to good over. the best apart as we got there the week before our tour of authors, the international thriller writers sends five authors every year to goer into taken the troops and we were the third group that got go over, and right before the got they had just seen the ultimate fighting champion guys, the cage fighting guys with no shirts on. the dallas council member cheerleaders, and then us. right? it was really like, the guys with all the muscles, the women wearing nothing, and the authors who are here to read to you. my friend was like, can you tape the audible saying the moment you enter the room and they realize there's stuck with you? the reason i got involved with the uso is because ten years ago, wright after -- right after

9/11, guy on a submarine rote me an e-mail and said know, i'm a submarines i can't tell youy, ute been the sub ma wean we have your book, the first council, and i want to tell you it's really bring me a lot of peace and i want to say thank you, brad. i was like that the nicest e-mail i have ever gotten. he would take time to thank me. i have to do something nice for this sailor. so, ten years ago i called my publisher and i said can i get 10,000 books donated to the us expo n and they were lake, yeah, and i was like, thank you, that was easy, and called another pusher, and another publisher, and over and over we got -- we got 40,000 books donated to the uso. so now flash forward two months ago. ten years later. i'm there with the uso, we're in kuwait, and one of the members of the military says to me, brad, i just want to thank you for all those books you donated

all those years ago, and i said to him how do you even know senate almost nobody knows about that. he said when i was stationed in iraq and afghanistan, we used to see stacks of your books and they always say courtesy of the uso so i now you dote nateed them. said, no, you're getting it all wrong. don't be thanking me, i'm here to tank you you're messing it up. and i i was so struck that when i came home i was like, have to track down that soldier, that sailor on that original submarine, find where he is. so i look at his e-mail address. and i track him town and find a phone number and call him um. and i said, i don't now if you. me, i'm brad meltzer, ten years ago you wrote me an e-mail from a submarine and i want to know it get to involved in the uso and we donates books, and he listens to the whole story can and there's this odd creepy silence, and you known when you're in a conversation something is wrong, and i'm like, something as gone wrong.

did offend system and i say, are you okay? because it was such an odd silence, and he says to me, not really. i said why, he says because a couple days ago my mother died from breast cancer. now, what he doesn't know is my mother had tied from breast cancer. and at that moment, i stop and i say to him, i think i'm here to deliver a message to you. and he says what's the message? and i said, when my mom passed away, everyone tried to give me advice but nothing was helpful except one thing. they said to me, our mothers never leave us, ever. and now he starts crying. and because he is crying, i'm all teared up. and as i'm sitting there, i'm thinking, i'm not one of those new age people who believes in the magic moment but sometimes in life we feel so disconnected and sometimes we are profoundly connected, and this was obviously one of those moments. this guy had taken me like a

boomer rang, and i came back ten years on the day he needs he more than any other, and i was struck. and the reason i tell you the story, thinking about the power of a thank you, and this is all i ask of you. when you leave here and we're done, i want you to think of the person who helped you in your life and you owe a thank you to. i want you to think of that teacher in junior high school or high school or the person who gave you the fir job, you were selling something, made the first sale to put think of the person, and thank them. i promise you, you will not ever believe what will come from it. and the amazing part of the story is when i told that story last week in washington, dc, also i got to the part where i said please thank another person, a person raised his hand and said i have to thank you forot how did for me on that submarine ten years ago, and it was the sailor from the submarine came to the signing. so the whole room is in tears

and he comes running up, and i hug him and i will tell you in that moment he does not whisper in my ear issue don't like hugging very much. but this is -- the most important thing i will say to you is thank you. thank you for coming here tonight and for supporting me. i want to thank leta, hosted me at my very first event here in los angeles when we had nobody atlanta it was a couple people and us, and took a chance on me from the start. so i love you for that. thank you forking too that. [applause] >> i have family, friends from all walks of life here. from college and high school and other places that come, and people who work andy coded are here. so thank you. i have all my agents here and my manager is here, and from wme and from lou and unanimous and david and ari and phil and josh and all these amazing people who let me do what i do, and i never get to thank publicly so thank you for what you too.

and all the people who come here, like you, come here every year, including -- even scoop here tonight and without that first help all those years ago in the white house i wouldn't be doing this. so, one last person i want to think, pause i never thank evidence him publicly and i want to show you what he looks like, scott, please come up here. watch this. he doesn't know what i'm doing. he's like, oh, crap. when you too your book, you do an audre book, and the first time did my audio book, i listen toed to the tape and they hired some famous person and it didn't sound like me. it was stilted and wasn't anything. then the second thing they hired a woman because it was female lead character, and i listened to it. and the rhythms were off. then i heard this voice. >> i don't have anything to read. i don't know what to say. >> i was like, that baritone is awesome. so this is actually the guy who does our audio book.

he is my voice. so, i never, ever, ever get to thank him. so thank you. >> i love you. >> he just whispered in my ear, down like hugging very much but it sounded baritone and so macho. but thank you to everyone who came here tonight. i really do appreciate it. especially those who come back and support these books and those who watch decoded and say i'm going to take a chance on a book. thank you for coming.

>> within the confines of a book you can only do so much. so, want diversity. we wanted democrats and republicans, different parts of the country. to some extent we wanted different ages. we knew on the basis of nine, you can't make generalizations that are 100% certain, and we say as much in the book. our conclusions are hypotheses but in order to make those, we needed a fairly diverse group.

>> there's a white house project that has been around for the last couple of election cycles s and they had eight in '08. so several of the women the white house project identified several years before the 2008 election, olympia know, katherine sebelius were in there, and barbara lee was here six years ago with her foundation, talked about locking at women governors. so we wanted to look at women governors who had been through some of barbara lee's training as parts of the pipeline to the presidency. >> we also made the observation that when a male is elected to senatorship, immediately he is cast as a future presidential hopeful. scott brown had not been sworn in yet in massachusetts and the url scott brown 2012.com was

already purchased. but so many women had been in washington for so many years, as legislators and working on important work, and yet their names never bubble to the top. and we were curious, why not? >> how did you decide you wanted to write this book? all threeoff you stud yesterday similar topics. how did the book actually come about? >> your idea. >> well, i guess it was my idea. i have been a political nerd since i was -- i don't know -- my parents still remember my sister and i in 1960 staging a nixon-kennedy debate. and during all of those years of nerd-dom, all that fascinated me

were the magazine issues that came out way in advance of a presidential election that would give you the eight or ten or 12 people who ought to be considered, and it simply struck me, after seeing so many of those issues, so many magazines, that women were not making it on to that list. they were not being thought to be presidential. they were thought for some reason not to be of presidential timber, and so as an academic, you ten to ask, well, why? and that for me was the ore gyp of the book. >> you can watch this and other programs online at booktv.org. >> next, on book tv, thed debtor of scoop, recoup end the life and career of her late husband, jack nelson, who died in 2009 at the aim -- age of 8. she is joined by former president jimmy carter, former mayor of atlanta and u.s.

ambassador the united nations, andrew young, and former justice department spokesman in a discussion of jack nelson's memoir, "scoopment. the evolution of a southern reporter" it's about an hour. >> good evening everyone. it's go to have everyone here. i'm hank and i'll be moderating this wonderful panel tonight. i am the director othe journalism program at emery, and co-author of a book about news coverage the civil rights movement. featured jack quite prominently. first of all, i want to thank the carter library and museum for hosting this, and for cosponsoring it. and also the emery university library, particularly the manuscript archives and rare books library, which houses the papers and the wisdom of a